Popular retail websites are getting slower

Posted on August 12, 2013.

America’s most popular retail websites are getting slower, according to new research.

A study, conducted by application delivery company Radware, found that the websites appearing in the US Alexa Retail 500 list take 7.72 seconds to load on average. That’s 13.7 per cent slower than in spring 2012.

According to telegraph.co.uk, the slowdown can largely be attributed to the fact that web pages now have more information on them. The average size of the web pages studied was 1,095KB with 91 resources. This represents an eight per cent growth in comparison to last year.

These companies invest plenty of cash to ensure that online payment is made as easy as possible for their customers. Yet, in an interview with da-systems.co.uk, Radware web performance evangelist Tammy Everts suggested that online retailers may have taken their eye off the ball when it comes to their page loading times.

She said: “These finds are startling! Retailers still don’t realise that they are losing customers by neglecting core best practices. Web pages need to work smarter and harder. Site owners not only need to adopt core best practices, but also utilise advanced techniques that optimise the browser’s efficiency.”

Researchers loaded each of the 500 websites nine times, using all three major web browsers, in order to get their results.